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Instead
of writing a bit on yet another weird book that I found at a thrift
store, I figured it might be interesting to share a bit on the books
that I decide to pass on when I am thrifting. Hopefully this will
demonstrate once and for all that I do have some degree of self control and that I am not prone to snatch up a book simply because it’s freakishly bizarre or kitschy.
Most of the thrift stores in our area are run by religious
organizations and there is typically a cache of bizarre religious
literature mixed in with their selections of books and magazines.
In some respects, this material can be rather amusing and I have
included a few examples below. But the more troubling selections
(some of which border on hate speech and extremism) are better left
unmentioned. All of the books mentioned below are real...I am not
making any of these up, I promise! If you look hard enough, you
can probably find most of these books in amazon.com or
abebooks.com. On with the list...
The Joy of Celibacy
This was a very short book with some very strange cover art. Trust me on this one.
Slick Willie: Why Americans Cannot Trust Bill Clintonby Floyd G. Brown
I was really confused at first because I thumbed through this book and I found no mention of NAFTA, the failure of the Clinton Administration to deliver on the promise of universal healthcare or the Defense of Marriage Act. Then I noticed the book was published in 1992. File this one under “prophesy.”
El Ocultismo y La Biblia
I can’t read Spanish, but you get the idea.
How Could You Do That?by Dr. Laura Schlesinger
I think the title is really asking how someone can make millions of dollars just by being a self-righteous quack.
The 1980's: Countdown to Armageddonby Hal Lindsey
Actually, I didn’t buy this book because I already have a copy. Hal
Lindsey is still in the “Armageddon” business today...Recently he
declared that Hurricane Katrina was proof that "judgment of America has begun." No word on when the judgment of Hal Lindsey will begin.
Final Exitby Derek Humphrey
This is a famous book on assisted suicide that was authored by the
founder of the Hemlock Society. The fact that I found a copy in a
thrift store that specializes in estate liquidation seems to suggest
that the previous owner got some use out of it.
Dangerousby Fabio
The cover boasts that readers can win a “Fabio Fantasy Date!” Would you
believe that there is actually an “International Fabio Fan Club”?
On their web site, you can view an article and video from back when Fabio was smacked in the face by an errant goose as he was testing out a roller coaster at Busch Gardens.
Julio! The Loves, Life and Legend of Julio Iglesiasby Jeff Rovin
I can’t think of anything funny to say about this one.
Listen to My Heart: Lessons in Love, Laughter, and Lunacy
by Kathie Lee and Cody Gifford
Oh, come on...Everybody knows that they didn’t write this book
together. Cody probably wrote the whole thing himself for a cool
43¢ an hour.
The Cairo Connection: Egypt in Prophecyby Zola Levitt
In this work of "Biblical scholarship," Mr. Levitt puts forth the
proposition that the Antichrist is Anwar Sadat. This is, of course,
utterly preposterous seeing as how Sadat was assassinated in 1981, just
a few years after this book was published. It’s also preposterous
because we all know that Mikhail Gorbachev is the real
Antichrist. Remember?
There’s really no shortage of strange and silly reading material in the
shops that I visit, so I am sure I will have more titles to share in
the near future. One of my favorite local spots has fallen on some hard times but hopefully it won’t be too long before I can get back there to look for new material.
The
Ohio Ethics Commission is once again considering charges against Bob
Taft for his failure to disclose gifts he has received while in office.
(source) Taft’s office is still disclosing newly discovered
unreported gifts weeks after his conviction on ethics violations.
It's rather unlikely that these new disclosures will result in further
criminal charges, though. It seems as though it was wisely
crafted into Taft's plea agreement that he can't be penalized for any
other unreported gifts. Talk about a sweet deal, huh?
No word on what the newly discovered gifts are, but I'm guessing we can
rule out the possibility that they are “brain support” supplements. I
mean, if "Focus Factor" works as well as the TV ads say, then a few of
those babies would surely help Governor Taft recall each and every one
of the free golf outings, sporting event tickets, fancy dinners and
teddy bears he has received since becoming Ohio's Chief
Executive....And he might even remember where all of our BWC money
is!
Ever since mytrip to the comic storelast week, comics have been on my mind. Over the weekend,
I decided to start on an inventory of my comics collection. I have
a decent-sized collection, so this will probably take a while.
Sorting through my collection will be a little time consuming. I
haven't really made an attempt to organize my comics in several years,
because I've been busy with more important things. This time
around, I'm using an old Macintosh PowerBook 1400cs/133 laptop to record my inventory. I'm
not grading my books as I go, but I am noting the titles, issue numbers
and quantity of all the books in my collection. Some of the older books don't have
issue numbers on the front covers so I have to take them out of the
bags and check the inside cover for the information that I need.
This process can become a bit daunting at times, especially when I am
dealing with comics from the ‘40's and ‘50's that crumble a little each
time they are handled. But on the other hand, this gives me the
opportunity to flip through comics that I haven't looked at in years
and from time to time, I discover things that I hadn't noticed or long
since forgotten.
For example, in an issue of the Golden AgeAirboy Comics(volume 8, number 3, to be exact), I noticed one of the strangest ads I have ever found in a comic book: "Throw Away That Truss!"
Bear in mind that this is a serious, legitimate ad and not a spoof like
you might find in Mad Magazine. Apparently, comic book readers
were a key demographic target for the truss market back in 1951.
I
snapped this picture earlier tonight. This spider is now living
in the same window sill that was once occupied by a big wasp
nest. She’s eating a bug.
After hearing so much about how great the movie "Napoleon Dynamite"
is for well over a year now, I finally got to see the film in its entirety
for the first time last night.
I have to admit, I absolutely love it!
I will now become one of "those guys" who insists that everyone must
see the movie for themselves to see how awesome it is.
Well,
let's just get this out of the way...I am still a fan of pro football.
(Maybe I should have filed this under “True Confessions.”) I don’t
follow any other sports (college or pro) with much enthusiasm or any
regularity. Pro football is different, though...It’s just
something that I have never been able to shake. It’s kind of like
those weird musical interests that I have mentioned before. I
just never grew out of my love for the game. There have been
times in which my interest was fleeting, but eventually the old excitement always kicks back in. For all of my life, the “home
team” has been the Cincinnati Bengals. When I was really little,
I was a Pittsburgh Steelers fan. I’m not exactly sure how or why
this was the case, but since the Steelers and the Bengals were division
rivals, I was never really one to root for the “home team.”
Around the late 1980's, I became interested in some other teams,
including the Minnesota Vikings and the Houston Oilers.
These are perennial “hard luck teams.” For a while there, it
seemed like every year, they would make it to the top of their
divisions only to have their hopes dashed in the post-season. The
1992 Oilers were one of my favorite teams of all time and it’s still
agonizing to watch highlight films from their loss to the Buffalo Bills
in the ‘92 AFC championship game. Even though the Oilers are now
defunct, I still carry a torch for them. I have a bunch of Oilers
memorabilia in my office and about once a week, a visitor says, “So,
are you an Oilers fan?” My response is typically a sigh followed
by, “Well, I was an Oilers fan...” Nowadays, the Oilers are the
Tennessee Titans and seeing as how their roster still boasts a few
Oilers vets, the Titans are still on my favorites list.
The Vikings are certainly set to
be a hard luck team again this year, although this time around, it
looks like they’ll be hard-pressed to even make it to the
post-season. Yesterday was one of the most abysmal drubbings that
I have ever seen the Vikings take. And it was all at the hands
of...the Bengals? Y’know, I have never really been excited about
a Bengals season until this year. It looks like things might be
coming together for them. The city of Cincinnati could sure use
something to be proud of for a change. Remember the “World League of
American Football" back in 1991? If I recall correctly, these
folks wre the first group to put “helmet cams” in the helmets of
quarterbacks and other players. The Orlando Thunder was my
team. WLAF was way cooler than the XFL.
I
just got back from the local comic shop where I had an experience that
I have not felt in quite some time...Something I saw at the comic shop
actually took my breath away. I mean...I made an audible gasp when
I saw it. I have been collecting comics for years and years and one
series has stood out in my mind as the single greatest comic series of
all time: Crisis on Infinite Earths. And now, some 20 years
after this landmark series, DC has finally decided to release a line of
deluxe action figures featuring some of the main characters from the
series.
The shop that I visited only had one figure (The Monitor) from the
first series in stock, but the rest of Series One were featured on the
flip side of the box. The figures are around $12.95, so I am not
so sure that I am willing to shell out so much money for something that
would just look cool sitting on a shelf...But man, they do look
cool! My days of spending lots of cash on toys and comics (for
myself) faded away a while back. These days, I generally avoid
even going into comic stores for fear of getting sucked back into the
quest to “keep up” with new series. But this time, the folks at
DC may have finally hooked me for sure. I’m not sure how long I
can hold out, really.
The
2005 Dayton Greek Festival is now history. This year, being at
the festival was a lot like being in Athens...It was really hot and
Coke was $2 a bottle.
Former consumer advocate turned ultra-right corporate shill John Stossel recently shared his thoughts on the price gouging that occurred in the Gulf Coast area in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina:
In praise of price gouging (full article) John Stossel September 7, 2005 [...]
Consider
this scenario: You are thirsty -- worried that your baby is going to
become dehydrated. You find a store that's open, and the storeowner
thinks it's immoral to take advantage of your distress, so he won't
charge you a dime more than he charged last week. But you can't buy
water from him. It's sold out.
You
continue on your quest, and finally find that dreaded monster, the
price gouger. He offers a bottle of water that cost $1 last week at an
"outrageous" price -- say $20. You pay it to survive the disaster.
You
resent the price gouger. But if he hadn't demanded $20, he'd have been
out of water. It was the price gouger's "exploitation" that saved your
child.
In
the days following Katrina, cable news presented loop after loop of
hurricane survivors obtaining essentials from grocery stores and other
establishments. Reporters and all sorts of television talking
heads condemned these actions as “looting.” Little mention
was given to the institutionalized inequities that have created a
desperate situation amongst the lower levels of America’s socioeconomic
strata — a situation that existed long before anyone had ever heard of
Hurricane Katrina. Stossel’s promotion of hyper-exploitative
price gouging in the aftermath of a natural disaster is simply adding
insult to injury.
Now,
don’t expect too much from Mr. Stossel, the self-proclaimed “scourge of
the liberal media.” I remember watching Stossel’s appearance on “The Daily Show”
in which he proclaimed that the “robber barons” of 19th century were
basically a group of good, well-intentioned and upstanding
Americans. An amazing interpretation of history, even from a
conservative standpoint, isn’t it? And how about his so-called “Stossel Rule?”
This kernel of wisdom states: “For every law you pass, you repeal two
old ones.” I guess that’s what we’ve been missing for so
long...Arbitrary rules formulated by self-absorbed television
personalities. Surely this will protect the interests and
livelihoods of the little people, eh?
But
maybe Stossel is not so arbitrary in his analysis of commodity
exchange. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps
he can show us the “invisible hand” that’s guiding the gougers.
He revisits his scenario and explains just how and why that $20 bottle
of water (and the price gouger) saved your baby:
It
saved her because people look out for their own interests. Before you
got to the water seller, other people did. At $1 a bottle, they stocked
up. At $20 a bottle, they bought more cautiously. By charging $20, the
price gouger makes sure his water goes to those who really need it.
The
people the softheaded politicians think are cruelest are doing the most
to help. Assuming the demand for bottled water was going to go up, they
bought a lot of it, planning to resell it at a steep profit. If they
hadn't done that, that water would not have been available for the
people who need it the most.
Or
perhaps those who “stocked up” might share it with their neighbors and
charge nothing at all! Perish the thought! Let’s wrap this
up with a parting thought from John “Give Me a Break” Stossel:
It's
the price "gougers" who bring the water, ship the gasoline, fix the
roof, and rebuild the cities. The price "gougers" save lives.
No,
Mr. Stossell...It’s not the gougers that “bring the water, ship the
gasoline, fix the roof, and rebuild the cities.” It’s the working people of the world
who do all these things and more. And the gougers simply leech
off working people by forcing them to pay inflated prices for the same
goods that they produced, hauled and distributed.
Are
the price gougers heroes? It certainly is a unique perspective,
I’ll grant that much to Mr. Stossel. Perhaps he can throw a
parade for the gougers...It’s not likely that anyone will show,
though. Who could afford the confetti? I’m sure it would be
around $30 a bag if you have to buy it from a gouger. But on the
positive side, I suppose we’d end up with a lifesaving surplus of
confetti on hand.
The
truth of the matter is, those who hoard essentials in times of crisis
and then demand exorbitant prices from the sick and suffering are not
heroes at all. It is far more accurate to say that these people are the
very bane of humanity. And surely the advocates of such extortion
and exploitation are their partners in crime.
“None
of us need anniversaries to remind us of what we cannot forget...The
grief is still deep. The rage still sharp. The tears have not dried.
And a strange, deadly war is raging around the world. Yet, each person
who has lost a loved one surely knows secretly, deeply, that no war, no
act of revenge, no daisy-cutters dropped on someone else's loved ones
or someone else's children, will blunt the edges of their pain or bring
their own loved ones back. War cannot avenge those who have died. War
is only a brutal desecration of their memory.”
Dangerous by Fabio 
No word on what the newly discovered gifts are, but I'm guessing we can
rule out the possibility that they are “brain support” supplements. I
mean, if "
I
just got back from the local comic shop where I had an experience that
I have not felt in quite some time...Something I saw at the comic shop
